“Deanie calls them pothole sheets.”
“Not that we had but one set of them. Just one.”
“We only have Porthault. Here and in New York. Len loved them, too.” “You two were well matched.”
“We were, weren’t we? Pull that side tighter, please.”
Jack did. He said, “Nine A.M. and I’m getting tired.”
No one had slept but Delroy, who had taken a sedative after the police finished talking with him early that morning. Jack had gone into one of the guest rooms to nap for a while, emerging in time for breakfast prepared by Mario. Lara had called the cook and the other servants, advising them they had a day off.
Both Jack and Lara had swallowed several cups of coffee, but neither one could eat.
Jack was ruling out the drink he wanted so badly because his stomach was empty; he’d get a headache.
He was helping Lara with the top sheet when she suddenly said, “You’re right, Jack.”
“About what?”
“If Delroy can get Deanie back to us safely, I’ll let him live in the litde house rent free from now until Memorial Day. That doesn’t include utilities or upkeep!”
Jack w'ent downstairs, headed for the bar, ready for that drink anyway—the hell with his head!
When Scotti got back to the house she heard the upstairs shower running. She saw the message light blinking on the answering machine.
“Scotti?” Jessica said. “The Pinto is registered to Gretchen Yeats from Copiague, and the Ford she rented from U-Drive in Copiague three days ago. . . . Emma says thanks for getting her Fortune Fanny and to send it on. I’ll be in the office about two this afternoon.”
After scribbling a note saying she would be back soon, Scotti grabbed her keys, got into her Saturn, and drove toward Maritime Way.
It had been Nell Slack at the cemetery, Scotti was sure. She’d seen the woman drive off in a Pinto, just as it flashed in her memory that Pecher-esse was Deanie Lasher’s pony. Pisheresse was the way Delroy had spelled it on the scarf he’d made for Deanie, which Nell Slack had worn over the white wig. Scotti remembered Mario telling her about the scarf Christmas night at Hydra.
Scotti was sure that was who she was, and that was why the woman turned her face away, and wouldn’t answer.
Other things were flashing through her thoughts now: Mario’s question about why she had chosen that particular book to “recycle”—a book about a child being kidnapped. Jack Burlingame’s crack about Fortune Fanny being a perfect gift for a child. His clock-watching. Mrs. Metcalf’s confusion about where Deanie was last night. The horse books Nell Slack left at the library. Mario’s mention of Nell Slack’s curiosity about the Invictus School.
And then, finally, something Jack Burlingame had said during the question period when he spoke at the library.
“Nothing sells books like the endangered child theme, and nothing sets the police into action like a kidnapping.”
Scotti had no idea why Nell Slack would disguise herself and appear at Len Lasher’s grave, but she was on to something, she knew it as surely as she knew how to get to Maritime Way.
She had no idea, either, what she would do when she got there, but her wheels squealed around the twists and turns of Old Stone Highway, Deep Six Drive, and finally the left turn that took her directly to her destination.
Detective Abrahams sat at the desk in the library, recounting local incidents of kidnapping to Burlingame, who’d made himself a Bloody Mary.
Mario sat on the couch. Thoughts that had nagged at him all the while he’d tried sleeping on that couch last evening were becoming more insistent.
Most local kidnappings had to do with parental custody cases, “which is why,” Abrahams said, “we tried to convince the Invictus School to cooperate with us in making videos of individual students. In a case like this, we could use one. The parents put them in a file with dental records and addresses the child is known to frequent. They help us greatly.”
“Why did Invictus object?” Burlingame asked.
“They said it would frighten the children unnecessarily. The other schools welcomed it. We use these videos for runners, too. The most common runaway is a Caucasian white female, age twelve.”
Mario couldn’t concentrate on what Abrahams was saying. He was remembering the way Cynthia always told him not to talk about business— “it upsets you”—after she’d instigated the talk, all the while noting everything concerning the club’s business, right down to the payroll, the payday, the bank deposits—all of it. And what was it Nell so often said after she’d question him during those trips to and from the airport? “Don’t talk about the Lashers. It upsets you.”
The phone interrupted Mario’s train of thought. Lara Lasher slipped into the room then, too.
Abrahams had his hand on the extension he’d assembled, with a speaker, a recorder, and caller identification. He pointed at Mario, who picked up.
“Len Lasher speaking.”
“Well, hello, Mr. Lasher. I hope you have a map of all the streets in Southampton, Bridgehampton, East Hampton, and Amagansett.”
“Yes. There are maps like tiiat in the cars you asked to be weady to go. I am pwepared to folwo your instwuckions to the letter, and there are no pweese inwolved.”
“There better not be if you want to see your litde girl. She’s all right, and eager to get home. Meanwhile, Mr. Lasher, be sure Delroy Davenport is standing by with the Lucky We.”
Click.
Lara Lasher said, “I wonder if he’s someone who worked for us? A yard man. A kitchen man. They come and go.”
She looked askance at the shape the library was in. Overflowing ashtrays, empty Coke cans, plates with sandwich crusts. She was making her way toward the door, asking the room, “Where is Delroy?”
“He walked down to his house for a change of clothes,” Burlingame
said.
“I don’t like that, Jack.” She paused in the doorway.
Abrahams said, “I don’t like it, either. He should be here. These people could call back any minute and tell us they have a new plan of action and are ready to go.”
Burlingame put his drink down and followed Mrs. Lasher out of the library, saying he’d walk down and get Delroy.
Once he was alone with the detective, Mario finally said, “There’s something I probably ought to mention.”
Someone, he should have said.
He almost called Nell “Cynthia.”
Although there were fresh tire tracks in the driveway, by the time Scotti reached the house on Maritime Way, both the Pinto and the Ford were gone. Karpinski was the name on a small square sign near the road. Whoever that was, he did not live there year-round. Two wooden braces protected the picture window in front against storms. Months-old telephone directories in plastic wraps were tossed into the yard, decaying with the leaves under the snow.
Scotti figured Karpinski could be a Homesafe client, giving Yeats access there.
She rang the bell, knowing in her heart that what she was doing was futile or dangerous. Nell Slack had probably already fled with Deanie Lasher. If she hadn’t, and the child was inside, she was likely bound and gagged.
Scotti did not dare break in, for fear a hidden alarm system would alert a protection agency whose guards would descend on the house. Whether the child was there or not, such an invasion could jeopardize Deanie Lasher’s life. What kidnappers did not warn that if the police or the public became involved it would cost the child’s life? For the same reason, Scotti could not chance going to the police. Judging from the midnight visit to Tulip Path, the police already were involved, but Scotti was aware that in such cases there was an elaborate “need to know” procedure, a careful blanketing of informadon.
She could not simply march into the police station and take the risk that the right person would hear what she had to say
When no one answered the door, Scotti decided to drive down to Newtown Lane where Nell Slack lived with Yeats. She did not expect that N
ell Slack would be there, nor would the child be there. She didn’t expect to run into Liam Yeats, either. But she wanted a look. It was her only option, under the circumstances.
She was not unaware that there was a remote chance that she was completely wrong about what was going on. But she felt that it was very remote.
East Hampton Village was typically quiet on this winter morning in late January.
There were few cars in the driveways of the house near the middle school. She could not see behind the house. She made a U-turn and parked across the street near Wittendale Florist.
This time she did not go to the front door where the vestibule inside had the nameplates Nell Slack, Liam Yeats.
She went past the green stone cat around to the back door.
Incredibly, it was unlocked.
Very carefully she turned the knob and tiptoed inside, entering a kitchen.
The first thing she spotted were the three books on the counter. The children’s books about horses. Next, she saw the scarf. Pisheresse.
Someone was in the front room. She could hear sounds from there.
But she had not heard the feet that went with the large hand which suddenly reached from behind to cover her mouth.
In her panic, Nell had brought the horse books with her, but she doubted that she’d find Deanie or Liam in the house. Desperate for any clue to their whereabouts, she played the messages on the answering machine.
“Liam? This is Gretchen. When are you returning the cars? Do you want me to meet you at U-Drive? Then we can have a bite somewhere and I’ll bring you back to get your Saab.”
“Nell? This is Ginny. Same number when you get to New York. Be thine own palace or the world’s thy jail. Remember? Can’t wait to see you.” “Liam, this is Ryan. I’m at Kennedy, about to fly off to Greece again, but last night my neighbor called to say the gutter at the back of my house is hanging down. Would you check on it and repair it if it is? I’ll be out in a few weeks. Thanks!”
That was all.
Nell could not believe that suddenly, out of the blue, Dr. Loeper had called! How had she known where Nell was? What kind of eerie intuidon had told her to recite that poem at the end of her message?
Nell had no answer to those questions, only the suspicion that Liam had probably taken the child with him to Copiague to reclaim his Saab. If a car truly had followed him down Maritime Way last night, he would want to get rid of the Ford.
He could be anywhere with the child by now. Nell couldn’t bring herself to call Gurney’s Inn, where Fina Merola was. Fina had never wished her well, siding with Liam always. She would side with Liam, anyway, for it was Liam who was in charge of procuring the Lucky We.
Having heard Ginny Loeper’s deep, welcome voice from the past, Nell know what she would do.
Without bothering to remove her makeup or the wig, without bothering to lock the back door, Nell went out the front.
She had parked the Pinto around the corner from Newtown Lane, on Osborne. Her own car was just outside the door. That was the car she would drive to Manhattan.
Delroy leaned back in the leather chair and stared at the small television in his nook.
Dick Tracy was playing, with Warren Beatty and Madonna, sound off. When he had first come to Sag Harbor to live with Aunt Sade, that was how he had watched television, without hearing it. The Amish had no television, and he had not been sure for a while that he should hear the worldly words of the English, as the Amish called the others. He had kept it on mute, for company, when poor Sade was down at the corner bar.
Sometimes he reverted to that old way of TV-watching when he was anxious.
Another thing he did was reread the letter from Patricia Highsmith, to remind himself that a famous person whom he had admired had answered a letter he had written her.
He had found the fragile rose on the floor, which he had put in his Bible to mark her death. Apparently it had fallen out when Jack Burlingame snooped around the nook and found the unfinished letter to Scotti.
Burlingame had not even apologized for going through his things, which had disappointed Delroy, for he had always behaved decentiy before all this.
Without even showing Delroy the ransom note, Burlingame had informed Delroy that he was the chosen courier, that the kidnappers wanted Delroy and only Delroy to pass the Lucky We to them.
“I guess the kidnappers realize how important you were to Mr. Lasher. Since they don’t know he’s dead, you still are his main man, from their viewpoint. So we’re all depending on you, Delroy, to save Deanie.”
But he was not invited into the library, where Mrs. Lasher and Burlingame (and even Mario!) were sequestered with Detective Abrahams.
He was told to wait upstairs until the time came. The Missus had even suggested that he might use the time to remove the blow-ins from the assortment of new magazines delivered in the morning mail.
It was odd that it reminded him of another wait a long time ago. He had been upstairs then, too, in his family’s house in Pennsylvania. Downstairs, the bishop was laying down the rules for Meidung. When he was finished, Delroy would be shunned. He would be cast off from the fellowship of the church, committed to the devils and his angels. (“Dem Teufel und alien seinen Engeln iibergeben”) Thirteen years old, hanging to the banister, Delroy heard his fate pronounced in the bishop’s solemn tone. From then on, no faithful member of the community, not even a relative, would talk with him, eat with him, have anything to do with him until he was taken by horse and buggy to the bus depot, an aunt he had never met waiting for him on Long Island.
But it isn’t like that now, he told himself. He was not being cast out. And if he was being used, as Mrs. House might believe, they were using him for a noble cause: to save Deanie! To undo, in fact, what Mario had let happen!
Delroy got his knitting from the top of the cherry dressing table.
In the Mister’s room, in the top drawer of the bureau where he kept his handkerchiefs, was the gift for the Missus.
Delroy had been thinking about that lorgnette ever since the Mister had passed on. The Missus, of course, knew nothing about it, just as she knew nothing about any of the rest of it: the letter detailing the plans for the funeral, everything prearranged: rooms at the inns, for instance, which Delroy was to have reserved the moment the Mister’s body was taken to the funeral home.
Instead of thanking him for his remarkable presence of mind in calling the ME immediately, the Missus had lashed out at him.
At first he imagined it was because for the briefest time he had called out for her hysterically, before he pulled himself together and almost mechanically took charge as he had been told to do by Mr. Lasher. He was amazed and deeply insulted by Mrs. Lasher’s reprimand. How was he to know Deanie had been kidnapped, or that Mrs. Lasher had hoped to keep the Mister’s death a secret?
Delroy was certain he would have been fired on the spot had he not been the chosen courier.
All of Mr. Lasher’s elaborate planning was now brought to a halt.
Delroy had not told anyone at Le Reve about it.
When he had made his secret, hurried call to Myrna House, she had agreed that it was no longer appropriate for him to follow those instructions. He had not had time to mention the lorgnette to her. There had barely been enough time for her to admonish him, “Don’t let them use you!”
He had not known then that he had been singled out by the kidnappers to hand over the ring.
Delroy mulled all of this over as he knitted Baba’s sweater.
If he was able to save Deanie, even Scotti House would finally take notice of him.
That thought was enough to bring a bitter smile to his countenance. If she had never trusted him before, and never warmed to his presence in her house, wouldn’t matters be different once it became known that everything had depended on Delroy Davenport, and he had not let them down?
Burlingame had said something about speaking to the Missus concerning the house Delroy had thought would be left hi
m in the Mister’s will.
Delroy’s hands were still a moment, and he closed his eyes. His brow furrowed as he prayed earnestly for Deanie’s safe return. Lately, every time he said a prayer he added something on Scotti House’s behalf, this noon a very generous request to the Almighty that she would enjoy her evening at the opera. It was the kind of gratuitous gesture he admired himself for making, considering the fact he did not approve of Max Bernstein, who had let her get behind the wheel drunk. He imagined Scotti, dressed to the nines, sitting in the sumptuous setting of the Metropolitan Opera House, caught in the spell of Tristan und Isolde—Delroy could hear the swooning, orgasmic love songs in his head. And a moment before his amen, he had an inspiration.
Amen.
Of all the Toulouse-Lautrec posters, Sade’s favorite was “l’opera.” It was a picture of a redheaded woman wearing long black gloves, holding a lorgnette in one hand, peering down at a stage. He had not thought of it until that moment, for it hung with the other two in the small house down the road, where he seldom spent any time.
Delroy left his knitting on the chair while he went into the master bedroom, where he opened the top drawer of the bureau. There, under the handkerchiefs, was the light blue box with the lorgnette inside.
Carefully, Delroy freed the envelope from the Scotch tape and with his first finger eased the back of it open. He pulled out one of Lasher’s small cards, not a business card, but the simpler ones engraved with just his name.
There in the old, bold handwriting were just five words:
I LOVE YOU! GOOD-BYE, BABY.
Delroy pocketed the card and the envelope.
He closed the bureau door and carried the box back to his nook.
“Hush, Scotti!” he had whispered, his large hand clamped across her mouth. “It’s Mario.”
Held tightly in that strange embrace, she had heard the end of a message on an answering machine in the other room.
“. . . Nell? This is Ginny. Same number when you get to New York. Be thine own palace or the world’s thy jail. Remember? Can’t wait to see you.” That was followed by a request from a man named Ryan, bound for Greece, worried about the gutter on his roof.
scott free Page 19